Tales Of Tehran: 1979 Revolution – Black Friday Out Now

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I’ve had my eye on 1979 Revolution: Black Friday [official site] for a long time. The game, which covers the Iranian Revolution of 1979 from the perspective of a photojournalist returning to the country after studies abroad, looks absolutely fascinating. It’s not a part of history I’m overly familiar with and while I wouldn’t want all of my learning to come from games, I’m extremely happy when they do expose me to new facts and ideas. 1979 Revolution is out now.

It looks a little bit Life Is Strange, doesn’t it? I’d be delighted if more games did but it seems there’s more to 1979 than dialogue and decisions. These two bullet points have my interest:

PHOTOGRAPHY – Take photos of the period accurate in-game world and compare them to the original archival photos captured by celebrated photojournalists.

Yes, the photography is another Life Is Strange touchstone but I love the idea of comparing in-game photography to actual archival shots. The entire game has apparently been informed by eyewitness accounts.

From what I understand – though it’s not clear on the Steam page – the game is a complete standalone experience, rather than episodic, but is short-form. The length of a movie rather than a Dragon Age. It’s cheaper than the couple of tickets to see 10 Cloverfield Lane I paid for at the weekend though (bring back The Twilight Zone on my telly and good please) and your choices in the game will have an impact on the lives of characters. I hope it’s turned out well and I’m eager to play.

Anyone interested in the background to the ’79 revolution should read “All the Shah’s Men’ by Kinzer. Gives a good account of the UK and US role in the coup that put the Shah back in, and eventually lead to the Islamic Revolution.

Oh I will get this as soon as I can. There is so much learn about this pivotal period. I had a persian advanced stat professor who was personally involved in the revolution and his stories were vivid and telling of a society that rapidly fell apart. Persepolis was a good take but the perspective was very lacking.

On another note, it’s strange how many disasters Black Friday encapsulates. I don’t mean to put down or distract from the subject of the game, but an anecdote: to me, Black Friday is 12th March, 1993 when Dawood Ibrahim exploded a series of bombs in Bombay, killing my great-uncle who was there for medical treatment. It was a grisly conclusion to the Babri Masjid riots that killed a thousand people.

Oh yeah, thousands of miles away from the mosque, Muslims were hunting down and killing Hindus in my country. The ripples. It’s at times like that you realize how banal, dumb and commonplace evil really is.

As someone who used to live in Iran I’m glad to see a game – judging just by the trailer and the info on the site – that is in a gray area regarding the Iranian revolution. Rather than the white and black portrayals that the current Iranian regime and ‘the west’ respectively seem to be looking to force.